The greatest Oilers team God ever made contained foundation pieces from Finland. If you cast your memory back to the 1980s, Finnish men like Matti Hagman, Risto Siltanen, Jari Kurri, Esa Tikkanen were building blocks to glory, and later Reijo Ruotsalainen arrived to join the party. In later years, Janne Niinimaa, Jussi Markkanen and others continued the tradition. The Oilers have never played in a Stanley Cup Final without a Finnish player to represent his country.

The Oilers slowed their Finnish drafting earlier this decade, and then stopped it completely. From 2012 through 2015, during four draft weekends and 29 picks, no Finlander playing in Finlandia was chosen by the town who counts several as hockey heroes.

And then, just as a spring thaw is signaled by a ray of sunshine and a beautiful songbird, the Oilers returned to Finland with flourish. Two new men from Finland were chosen, and each of them has something to bring to an organization badly in need of their substantial skills.

PLAYERS/PLAYERS FROM FINLAND DRAFTED BY YEAR

2016 NHL draft—211 total players, 12 from Finland

2015 NHL draft—211 total players, 11 from Finland

2014 NHL draft—210 total players, 7 from Finland

2013 NHL draft—211 total players, 9 from Finland

2012 NHL draft–211 total players, 9 from Finland

2011 NHL draft, 211 total players, 10 from Finland

2010 NHL draft 210 total players, 7 from Finland

2009 NHL draft, 211 total players, 7 from Finland

2008 NHL draft, 211 total players, 6 from Finland

FINAL TALLY: 1,897 total players, 78 from Finland

PERCENTAGE: 4.1%

TOTAL PLAYERS/FINLAND PLAYERS DRAFTED BY THE OILERS

2016 NHL draft—9 total players, 2 from Finland

2015 NHL draft—6 total players, 0 from Finland

2014 NHL draft—6 total players, 0 from Finland

2013 NHL draft—10 total players, 0 from Finland

2012 NHL draft–7 total players, 0 from Finland

2011 NHL draft–9 total players, 2 from Finland

2010 NHL draft–11 total players, 0 from Finland

2009 NHL draft–7 total players, 1 from Finland

2008 NHL draft–5 total players, 1 from Finland

FINAL TALLY: 70 total players, 6 from Finland

PERCENTAGE: 8.57%

The NHL drafted 36 players from Finland from 2012-15, none of them chosen by the Oilers. In 2016 the Oilers chose two of 12 players. I should mention that Finland has produced far more NHL prospects than these numbers imply, mostly because Finnish teenagers are cast all over the globe, from Sweden to the USA and in Canada in all three CHL leagues.

FINNISH FINLAND PLAYERS SINCE 2008

2008—Teemu Hartikainen (52 NHL games)

2009—Toni Rajala

2010

2011—Samu Perhonen, Frans Tuohimaa

2012

2013—

2014—

2015

2016—Jesse Puljujarvi, Aapeli Rasanen

The five picks from 2008-11 produced just one NHL player, and Teemu Hartikainen played in fewer than 100 NHL games (generally viewed as the required level of ‘success’ for a draft pick). Of course expectations will be much higher for Jesse Puljujarvi, the highest Finnish draft selection in Oilers history, and the sixth highest in team history. The previous high was Jani Rita, No. 13 overall in 1999.

OILERS NEEDS BASED ON CURRENT DEPTH CHART

Left Wing: The trade of Taylor Hall means the NHL team has no LW younger than 28 (Lucic, Maroon, Pouliot, Hendricks) on the everyday roster. Tyler Benson is an excellent prospect but can the Oilers count on him? Jujhar Khaira may offer an option for bottom 6F, and Drake Caggiula’s story is unfolding. Oilers need help here, and that help need to be a sure thing.

Right Wing: Jesse Puljujarvi was a big get from last year’s draft, but this position needs more help at the draft in June. Anton Slepyshev could be a Godsend if he can grab a job on one of the skill lines and keep it.

Right Defense: Aggressive procurement of Matt Benning, Ethan Bear and Ryan Mantha make this position a little stronger from what we were looking at this time next season. More needed, but the club is getting there.

Goal: The trick here is to shore up the position without spending any high picks. Laurent Brossoit is in the NHL now, with Nick Ellis trending very well in his first year pro. Dylan Wells has been an excellent draft bet so far. We could see a goalie added fairly early in this year’s draft, lots of strong candidates.

Left Defense: At the big league level, the Oilers have youngsters Oscar Klefbom and Darnell Nurse. Griffin Reinhart may or may not force himself into the lineup, but he better hurry because Caleb Jones and or Ziyat Paigin could be pushing soon. Edmonton can afford to pass on a LHD unless the value is extreme.

Center: If you include Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, this is one of the deepest positions in the entire NHL.

OILERS TARGETS BASED ON THEIR OWN PAST

Miro Heiskanen, Emil Oskanen, Robin Salo

MY PREFERRED TARGETS

Miro Heiskanen, Emil Oksanen, Aatu Luusuaniemi, Veini Vehvilainen.

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As St. patty’s day is early and often today, a heartfelt hat tip to LT – a talented artist that can make the most obscure Finnish draft picks intruiging and compelling. (Insert failed gaelic well wishes here).

hunter1909,
My memory fails me (happens a lot lately). I remember wavering between a death march number of 91 to 101 points or thereabouts. Can you remind me what my number was? I plan to celebrate heartily the day we pass my number!
This years version of death march is too much fun. Previous years, too depressing.;)
Thanks for checking.

I apologize for posting this again. It was on near the end of last article’s thread so may have been missed!

One good difference maker is more valuable than a heap of depth players. Thus it seems the best strategy (to me) is to trade up, not down, and try to secure at least one good player in the draft. After the first it really seems a gamble on who will emerge as NHL talent.

Lt; when discussing Aston-Reese you mentioned two other players who you stated could be arguably the best available. I interpreted that as potentially better than Aston-Rees. Any more thoughts on those other two, what makes them desirable, and any rumours Oil are interested?

With the advancement of analytics in recent years, a team’s roster composition is becoming more critical than ever before. Analysis allows teams to be far better prepared for opponents than they were historically, so time and space for making hockey plays is limited. Having the left/right handedness of the roster balanced should be an advantage for a team, imo. That extra micro-second to release a one timer in the game today can be a difference maker on a lot of nights when the defensive structures are so tight.

Bearing that in mind I wouldn’t be upset if the Oilers only drafted RC’s and RD’s in the upcoming draft. Before the trade deadline this year I searched through the NHL rosters looking for potential acquisitions for those two holes on the Oilers, and that was a bit of a rude awakening for me…there is not much out there, unless you are willing to pay a hefty price. With the value that good righty’s have, you can find anything you need to fill your roster around them.

And yes, the Oilers should try to acquire another draft pick for this year if they can do it. If they use it on a RH Finnish player, so much the better. If our Finn had been on the bench as JDÏ noted above, 06 could have had a different end result. Moar Finn!

Jonas Gustavsson got a 27 save shutout tonight for the Condors. I assume it is the first shutout ever recorded by a goalie who is incapable of actually facing a shooter. I bet he made half of those saves with his butt.

ANA loses after reg today, we are 1 pt up on CAL and 2 behind ANA going into tomorrow. ANA plays SJ tomorrow, we play VAN. A win and we could squeak 1 ahead of CAL and tie ANA.

CAL, SJ and EDM then 11 games left and ANA with 10. In game 72 for the rest of this bunch, SJ gets DAL (we won’t catch them barring a miracle run), EDM and CAL both face LA for their 72 game. This could leave EDM 2 up on ANA and 1 up on CAL after 72 games.

game 73 match ups:
ANA gets EDM. EPIC.
CAL gets WAS. Tough opponent.

If we win in OT/SO, we would be 3 up on ANA , anywhere from 1 to 3 up on CAL after 73.

And it just gets better from there, but lets not go more than 3 games ahead as the sands they are a shiftin’…

STL 10 easy and 2 medium. NO HARD. 6 of their 12 remaining games are ARI and COL, 1 with VAN , 1 with WPG, 1 with FLA , 1 with CAR, and their two medium games are 1 each with CAL and NAS. PILLOW SOFT OPPONENTS.

I think STL passes NAS like a house on the side of the road, EDM gets second n PACIFIC, CAL and ANA depends on the breaks for wild card or not for each. Forget about LA – too far back and not enough blacktop left to catch up. 6 left against CAL and EDM and they need to almost run the table on both to have a good chance to catch NAS (STL wont let them get close as per schedule above).

All respect to Finns. This very small country and they are able to produce so much taleneted young players. They have really good development programs. I remeber in early 90s it was very often they lost by 5-6 goal difference by other teams and now they are #3-4 in the world. Good job…